Well it was a long answer, but it doesn't answer my question of why the blaming of the Jews, if it was a Roman invention, is present in the first Gospel about 300 years before Rome and Christianity merged. If we assume, reasonably I think, that Mark did not make the story out of whole cloth, but used strands of popular narrative and maybe unknown written sources, the scapegoating of the Jews must be present in Israel even earlier.

It seems obvious that the Jews would bear plenty of hatred toward the Romans. That fact doesn't mean that the Gospels don't say what they do say regarding the Romans. The Romans are let off the hook. Pilate is weak and vacillating; the Romans do the politic thing in giving the Jews what they wanted. What did it matter to Rome, anyway, if one more fanatic Jew was sacrificed? The political reality in Israel at the time of the writing of Mark doesn't matter to the story except as it is reflected in the story.

The more likely scenario? The Jews are assigned responsibility for Jesus' death out of an internecine struggle that took place between the Jewish establishment and the forming Christian sect.

If "evidence is the core of ethics," Robert, why do you single out Christianity for condemnation? Why do you not also condemn basically any religious belief, including myth?

DWill wrote:Well it was a long answer, but it doesn't answer my question of why the blaming of the Jews, if it was a Roman invention, is present in the first Gospel about 300 years before Rome and Christianity merged.

I didn't say blaming the Jews was a Roman invention. The New Testament metaphysically blames all of humanity for killing Christ. JS Bach has a famous chorale, Herzliebster Jesu, with the line ‘I crucified thee’. The Bible presents the responsibility as joint. The Jewish leaders and their acolytes bayed for blood, but they did it to suck up to the Romans as a signal of imperial loyalty, and then the Romans carried out the execution using their unique method reserved for punishing and warning against sedition. The deflection was the gradual Christian emergence of the idea that Jews are Christ-killers, effectively contrasting good Christians with evil Jews. Instead of the Gospel view that all are to blame, the empire propaganda said only the Jews are to blame.

If we assume, reasonably I think, that Mark did not make the story out of whole cloth, but used strands of popular narrative and maybe unknown written sources, the scapegoating of the Jews must be present in Israel even earlier.

Yes, it is in the Jewish prophets, as Jesus notes when he despairs over Jerusalem for killing the prophets. The Jews were thought to have a unique relationship with God, but one that they did not live up to. This failure to fulfil a divine mandate can readily be seen as a statement that Jews were no better than the rest of humanity, but in anti-Semitism it evolved into the idea that Jews are actually much worse than others. The psychological point of scapegoating is to assert that ‘normal’ Gentiles are good and blameless because everything bad can be attributed to the scapegoat, whose punishment serves to redeem the rest. It is a psychological method of ignoring and denying one’s own failings and guilt by displacing it onto a third party.

It seems obvious that the Jews would bear plenty of hatred toward the Romans. That fact doesn't mean that the Gospels don't say what they do say regarding the Romans. The Romans are let off the hook. Pilate is weak and vacillating; the Romans do the politic thing in giving the Jews what they wanted. What did it matter to Rome, anyway, if one more fanatic Jew was sacrificed? The political reality in Israel at the time of the writing of Mark doesn't matter to the story except as it is reflected in the story.

To say the Gospels let the Romans off the hook is just your own interpretation, which does not accord with the text. As I mentioned before, Mark speaks of the ‘desolating sacrilege’ which refers to the Roman desecration of the Jewish temple, condemning them as evil and godless. The Gospels present the responsibility for murdering Christ as joint, for example describing the profane soldiers who gamble for Christ’s clothes and bash him. The soldiers represented the empire, not the Jews. Pilate is not weak, he represents the power of Empire, and he simply applies a shrewd method to achieve his objective with plausible deniability, a tool much used over the history of diplomacy.

The more likely scenario? The Jews are assigned responsibility for Jesus' death out of an internecine struggle that took place between the Jewish establishment and the forming Christian sect.

Debatable. There is a surface story of disappointment that the Jews failed to recognize the Messiah, but this covers a deeper understanding that the Servant King model of salvation was basically incomprehensible, and that Jesus presented a message ‘not of this world’ that could never have achieved immediate political power in the ancient context. This complex vision was gradually simplified as those in power wished to blame the powerless Jews for everything bad. Christianity targeted all old religion, pagan and Jewish, through its message that Christ was the only way to truth and life. As Christendom abandoned and condemned paganism, this message of ‘Christ alone’ became a means to attack anyone who had the integrity to hold their own spiritual identity. Ancient Jews knew full well that the Jesus story was invented, which is why they did not go along with it, but this knowledge was violently suppressed.

If "evidence is the core of ethics," Robert, why do you single out Christianity for condemnation? Why do you not also condemn basically any religious belief, including myth?

It is not Christianity as such that I am condemning, it is the specific orthodox claim of truth for farcical superstitions. Respect for the Jesus story should no more be diminished by recognition that it was totally invented than by recognition that it contains numerous impossible elements such as virgin birth and miracles. Christianity can only regain respect and integrity in a scientific age if it abandons its status as an evidence free zone.

The New Testament remains a powerful ethical source as long as it is read as allegory, not history. When a myth is exposed as false its adherents should see logic and evidence and accept that they were deluded. The story of Jesus remains a powerful archetype for the imaginative ideal of human redemption, with its heroic vindication of speaking truth to power. The story of Jesus is about what a Messiah would have done if he had actually existed. The contemptible fantasy, which Bart Ehrman advances in Did Jesus Exist?, is the insistence that this worthy fictional vision is historically accurate, despite the complete absence of evidence for it outside the novellas of the Gospels.

I'm dissaponted in where this has lead too

The mythicist tactics are

Use scripture when convienient. Throw out when inconvenient
Examine similarities between dying/rising gods of vegetation and Christ
Throw out completely the differences (Which are abundant)
Speak of treachery, secret cabals, and plots that "prove" without an ounce off evidence, some scripture was inserted to create a myth
When asked for ancient sources to corroborate claims, provide links to websites by bloggers who support the mythicist angle.

This is all by and large creative narrative.

ant wrote:I'm dissaponted in where this has lead too

You might try a spell checker ant. Three (or four) mistakes in an eight word sentence is good going.

I’m not sure what you expected in starting this thread. If you thought that Ehrman would convince anyone then perhaps you should read some of the withering criticism about his incompetence and shoddy argument that he has copped on various other boards.

The mythicist tactics are - Use scripture when convienient. Throw out when inconvenient

It is not about convenience it is about coherence. The fact is there is no corroborating evidence outside scripture, so we have to start with a hypothesis of how the gospels were produced. The alternatives are that (a) Jesus was the historical founder of Christianity or (b) he was not. If we say Jesus was the founder, we immediately find numerous examples of incoherence, not just with the rank impossibilities, but with basic facts of geography and credibility. It is not credible that Paul obtained his ideas from a historical Jesus when he never says so or gives evidence of doing so. But the contrary view, that Jesus was invented, coheres with everything except the bare assertion in the Gospels that they describe historic events. Cervantes does as much in Don Quixote.

Examine similarities between dying/rising gods of vegetation and Christ

You were the one who introduced Ehrman’s risible error about Osiris, which demonstrates his clumsy lack of knowledge of this topic. This is an important question because it shows the continuity between the Christian myth and earlier similar symbols. Easter is the end of winter and the beginning of spring, matching to the traditional celebration of the turn of the seasons, presenting an obvious ritual basis for the story of the cross (winter) and resurrection (spring). You should read more before making dubious implications that such correlations do not have any content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_god is a good start.

Throw out completely the differences (Which are abundant)

Now you are warming up. Where has anyone in this thread suggested anyone should ignore differences between Jesus and his templates? Of course there are differences. Jesus was intended as a historical synthesis of many different sources, with the primary aim of being believable. The sources had to be concealed and amended to make it believable. In some cases the similarity is obvious, such as the temptation in the wilderness modelled on the battle between Horus and Set, or Lazarus modelled on Osiris, but there are very many more similarities that draw on or show familiarity with the old stories even where they are changed. Gerald Massey produced a long list of them. The apologist tactic of emphasising differences and ignoring similarities is unscholarly.

Speak of treachery, secret cabals, and plots that "prove" without an ounce off evidence, some scripture was inserted to create a myth

Your imagination is wonderfully fertile ant. Apart from the non sequitur between your hushed depiction and the evidence of interpolation, you seem not to have studied this topic well. A good place to start might be Ehrman’s earlier book on Christian fraud, or Wheless.
Many apologists enjoy attributing statements to mythicists that they have not made. This is a good example.

When asked for ancient sources to corroborate claims, provide links to websites by bloggers who support the mythicist angle.

Implying what? That mythicists are untrustworthy because they are mythicists? That is a basic ad hominem fallacy. You imply that we should restrict our sources to those who reject evidence on the basis of preconceived faith. This further illustrates the basic lack of scholarly dignity in the historicist camp when it comes to dispassionate study of evidence.

This is all by and large creative narrative.

I’m sure you would have welcomed some fawning endorsement of Ehrman’s hack job, as Robert Price described it. But really, Ehrman has accidentally done a good service to the debate, bringing it to a wide public audience such as CNN, and exposing how the academy has slipped into inquisitorial methods in its groupthink failure to engage with the historical evidence about the production of the Gospels. Various people have said these topics should be debated in accessible public forums. The scathing assessments of Ehrman’s book are likely to help bring this material to a much wider audience.

Robert Tulip wrote: didn't say blaming the Jews was a Roman invention. The New Testament metaphysically blames all of humanity for killing Christ. JS Bach has a famous chorale, Herzliebster Jesu, with the line ‘I crucified thee’. The Bible presents the responsibility as joint. The Jewish leaders and their acolytes bayed for blood, but they did it to suck up to the Romans as a signal of imperial loyalty, and then the Romans carried out the execution using their unique method reserved for punishing and warning against sedition. The deflection was the gradual Christian emergence of the idea that Jews are Christ-killers, effectively contrasting good Christians with evil Jews. Instead of the Gospel view that all are to blame, the empire propaganda said only the Jews are to blame.

Whenever we have a clear causation in history, we shouldn't obscure it as you are doing. This is a less complicated than you are making it. Each of the Gospels assigns specific blame for Jesus' death to the Jews. There is no other authority needed to explain why Christians hated Jews and persecuted them for centuries. It's in the Bible, so it had to be true.

Yes, it is in the Jewish prophets, as Jesus notes when he despairs over Jerusalem for killing the prophets. The Jews were thought to have a unique relationship with God, but one that they did not live up to. This failure to fulfil a divine mandate can readily be seen as a statement that Jews were no better than the rest of humanity, but in anti-Semitism it evolved into the idea that Jews are actually much worse than others. The psychological point of scapegoating is to assert that ‘normal’ Gentiles are good and blameless because everything bad can be attributed to the scapegoat, whose punishment serves to redeem the rest. It is a psychological method of ignoring and denying one’s own failings and guilt by displacing it onto a third party.

In religious war, all is fair. There would have been a clear strategic reason for a group called the Jews to have been produced as the enemy necessary to any war.

To say the Gospels let the Romans off the hook is just your own interpretation, which does not accord with the text. As I mentioned before, Mark speaks of the ‘desolating sacrilege’ which refers to the Roman desecration of the Jewish temple, condemning them as evil and godless. The Gospels present the responsibility for murdering Christ as joint, for example describing the profane soldiers who gamble for Christ’s clothes and bash him. The soldiers represented the empire, not the Jews. Pilate is not weak, he represents the power of Empire, and he simply applies a shrewd method to achieve his objective with plausible deniability, a tool much used over the history of diplomacy.

Again, why do the words of the Gospel inspire implacable hatred toward the Jews, if i am interpreting them my own way? I think it's very likely that in any supposed historical scenario like that in the Gospels, the Romans would in fact have been the actuators of the death of Jesus. So to make them virtual bystanders in the story indicates a revisionist purpose on the part of the writers.

It is not Christianity as such that I am condemning, it is the specific orthodox claim of truth for farcical superstitions. Respect for the Jesus story should no more be diminished by recognition that it was totally invented than by recognition that it contains numerous impossible elements such as virgin birth and miracles. Christianity can only regain respect and integrity in a scientific age if it abandons its status as an evidence free zone.

The point is that you don't need to look far outside of Christianity to find farcical superstitions aplenty. And Christianity is actually low on the scale of superstitions.

The New Testament remains a powerful ethical source as long as it is read as allegory, not history. When a myth is exposed as false its adherents should see logic and evidence and accept that they were deluded. The story of Jesus remains a powerful archetype for the imaginative ideal of human redemption, with its heroic vindication of speaking truth to power. The story of Jesus is about what a Messiah would have done if he had actually existed. The contemptible fantasy, which Bart Ehrman advances in Did Jesus Exist?, is the insistence that this worthy fictional vision is historically accurate, despite the complete absence of evidence for it outside the novellas of the Gospels.

[/quote][/quote]
Unlike you, I'm not extremely keen on the ethical value of these stories. They are examples of of worthy religious thought in the world-wide mix, but I'd never think of putting them at the top by themselves. I also think that to base a religion's credibility on the claim that certain things merely happened is silly. What is the value of things that merely happened, even if they really did? I can't see that as a high aim of a religion at all. So I agree with you partly. I don't agree that claiming historical basis is such a cardinal sin in itself, vis-a-vis the drawbacks we can cite for all the other kinds of religion.

DWill wrote:Whenever we have a clear causation in history, we shouldn't obscure it as you are doing. This is a less complicated than you are making it. Each of the Gospels assigns specific blame for Jesus' death to the Jews.

The causation is far from clear or simple. Saying the Gospels assign specific blame is an interpretation. You might like to cite the Gospel texts that give you this impression, as I suspect you will find you are running together various ideas to construct a mental narrative that is not really supported in the text. Yes, you can point to Jewish responsibility for handing Jesus over to the Roman executioner. But compare this to a modern policing operation – we do not place sole guilt on an arresting officer for the punishment of an innocent prisoner, it is a complex institutional process involving police, judge, jury and jail.

There is no other authority needed to explain why Christians hated Jews and persecuted them for centuries. It's in the Bible, so it had to be true.

That ignores the comple backdrop of economic and social relations between Christians and Jews. It is rather like saying the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland have hated each other because of specifically religious differences, when it is obvious these differences are primarily the surface markers of deeper questions of identity, especially political tribal conflict rooted in war and imperialism. The anti Jewish lines in the Bible were a handy excuse to latch on to to justify a predisposition grounded in the identity politics of a dominant group that found the Jews a convenient target. You are mistaking an outward sign (dogma) for a deep cause (politics). The Bible also tells us other things, such as to love our enemies and aim for unity, but these get ignored as inconvenient.

why do the words of the Gospel inspire implacable hatred toward the Jews, if i am interpreting them my own way?.

It is not the words alone, but the interpretation that rationalises hatred. The interpretation requires that people with motive whip up popular sentiment. This particular angle in the Bible had to be emphasised, given priority over other teachings that are equally present and that argue against racial hatred. Love, forgiveness and mercy are primary themes in the New Testament. You have to twist the text to get a primary message of hatred, let alone your alarming phrase implacable hatred. In the Nazi context that required a lot more than the Bible to generate it.

I think it's very likely that in any supposed historical scenario like that in the Gospels, the Romans would in fact have been the actuators of the death of Jesus. So to make them virtual bystanders in the story indicates a revisionist purpose on the part of the writers.

Calling the Romans bystanders is a distortion of the historical context. Just before the Gospels were written, the Romans had utterly destroyed the Jewish temple in one of the most massive wars of the Empire. Here is the Arch of Titus that commemorates their victory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_Titus

The scale of Roman intimidation was immense. It is hardly surprising that the Gospels parcel out the blame equally between Rome and Israel. To do otherwise would have invited immediate retribution, which came anyway with persecution of Christians for their anti-pagan attitudes such as refusal to worship the Roman Emperor. Pilate washing his hands of the affair is a cunning device that can in no way be taken at face value as some exoneration of Rome by the Gospel authors.

you don't need to look far outside of Christianity to find farcical superstitions aplenty. And Christianity is actually low on the scale of superstitions.

Christianity is high on the scale of superstitions. All miracles are rank superstition. Belief in the supernatural and heaven is superstition. Just because many Christians can bracket their absurd beliefs and function as rational modern people does not make those beliefs any less absurd. The bracketing makes the beliefs less dangerous, but why would you want to endorse claims you know to be false? That is unethical and hypocritical. Unbracketed Christianity of the rapture variety is a principal danger to world peace, security and sustainability.

Unlike you, I'm not extremely keen on the ethical value of these stories. They are examples of worthy religious thought in the world-wide mix, but I'd never think of putting them at the top by themselves.

Each of us has our own ethical values. I see Jesus as the voice of Gaia and indigenous nature, speaking the word of cosmic reason and grace against the alienated evil of human constructed culture. His statement that the last will be first is to recognise that many hidden and vulnerable things in our world are among the most important, and that the values of the powerful do not serve the public interest. But this statement is also set within a context of respect for the powerful, for example in the parable of the talents, in a way that I believe provides the best available model for contemporary ethics, when combined with the expression of human solidarity and mercy in the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Judgment.

to base a religion's credibility on the claim that certain things merely happened is silly. What is the value of things that merely happened, even if they really did? I can't see that as a high aim of a religion at all. So I agree with you partly. I don't agree that claiming historical basis is such a cardinal sin in itself, vis-a-vis the drawbacks we can cite for all the other kinds of religion.

With the scale of problems facing our planet, I simply do not believe the world can afford to have large numbers of people believing things that are not true, such as the actual existence of Jesus, and for political leaders to acquiesce in this folly. It becomes a lemming-like plunge towards the cliff.

Christianity has seen two great scientific revolutions, those of Copernicus and Darwin. Recognition of the fraudulent history of the church is a third religious revolution on a par with these two big earlier ones. But critique of the Gospels should mean reforming religion, not calling for its abolition. Religion is a good and necessary basis for community and identity. It is possible to be serious about science while also respecting the ethical message and symbolism of Christian tradition.

You might try a spell checker ant. Three (or four) mistakes in an eight word sentence is good going.

That entire post was from my Iphone while I was sitting in traffic.

You might try sticking to facts and evidence in this discussion.
Your story telling, although entertaining, is becoming quite boring.

You want to get childish, Robert? I'm willing to stoop to your level if necessary.

Stop being an intellectual hypocrite, Robert.

Careful ant, I was just giving you some friendly advice to help you make your comments more readable. So now observing a few spelling mistakes is boring and childish intellectual hypocrisy? No wonder you think Did Jesus Exist? is a great book, with that logic. Don't get so antsy. Or maybe you can enlighten us on where my comments are actually hypocritical. I would love to know.

So now observing a few spelling mistakes is boring and childish intellectual hypocrisy?

Cute picture

That's not what I meant re the hypocrisy comment. I think you know that. You were being cheeky and childish.

I do admire your demonstration of intellectual courage for supporting such a flimsy, unsubstantiated, hollow, conspiratorial, kooky theory that the mythicist angle is. You simply will not admit you are allowing much more rope than you normally would otherwise (that's my gut feeling on this).

You can not substantiate most every single claim you endorse.

You refuse to recognize the plethora of differences between the historical Jesus and the gods that mythicists claim have the exact same narrative attached to them. That simply is false.

You don't have a desire, so it seems, to attempt to falsify your hypothesis.

You disregard scripture that indicates Jesus was a flesh and blood man, but are more than willing to turn to scripture when it suits your needs (and that's just one example!).You want it both ways, Robert. You want the rules bent in your direction so that you can add substance to your theory.

And most telling of all in my opinion, you will not allow the criteria historians use into this entire discussion. You are happier whining and opining that this is all really about the suppression by a paradigm of Christian scholars who will not entertain or give credence to really brilliant scholars like Doherty. The old paradigm, who believe in Jesus and have too much at stake to believe otherwise, are out to discredited masterpieces like Doherty's recent book.

You are highly emotional about this because you have a dog in this race, Robert. Even a high school dropout like me can see that.

I do, however, appreciate your participation in this.

Robert Tulip wrote: The causation is far from clear or simple. Saying the Gospels assign specific blame is an interpretation. You might like to cite the Gospel texts that give you this impression, as I suspect you will find you are running together various ideas to construct a mental narrative that is not really supported in the text. Yes, you can point to Jewish responsibility for handing Jesus over to the Roman executioner. But compare this to a modern policing operation – we do not place sole guilt on an arresting officer for the punishment of an innocent prisoner, it is a complex institutional process involving police, judge, jury and jail.

I think you misunderstand me. The causation I'm claiming is simply that what the Gospels say about the role of the Jews had a great deal to do with their treatment down the ages. I don't feel I need to defend an interpretation, because obviously millions of believers have taken this "interpretation" as Gospel (sorry). Support in the text, the true historical situation--neither is relevant to the point.

There is no other authority needed to explain why Christians hated Jews and persecuted them for centuries. It's in the Bible, so it had to be true.

That ignores the complete backdrop of economic and social relations between Christians and Jews. It is rather like saying the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland have hated each other because of specifically religious differences, when it is obvious these differences are primarily the surface markers of deeper questions of identity, especially political tribal conflict rooted in war and imperialism. The anti Jewish lines in the Bible were a handy excuse to latch on to to justify a predisposition grounded in the identity politics of a dominant group that found the Jews a convenient target. You are mistaking an outward sign (dogma) for a deep cause (politics). The Bible also tells us other things, such as to love our enemies and aim for unity, but these get ignored as inconvenient.

Here again, from the standpoint of all the good Catholics, this is indeed all that is needed. You're bringing into the picture an analysis that was no part of the catechism Catholics were taught. It's not relevant to what they believed. I won't continue to comment on your post, because my point would be the same. We know the Bible has all sorts of statements in it about love, especially in NT. The fact that this love was not entirely universal is shown by the distinctly unloving attitude toward the Jews. There is a specific charge made against a people. I can't see how, in the context of prevailing "fundamentalism" and the unfolding of history, that cannot be said to have had a most profound effect.